Searching – Huan He

Under a roof that caves inward to
home me, filling me tenderly like
a stringy twig. By candlelight, I see
a boy who wore my face searching
behind painted cabins to
become whole, a decoder of
hieroglyphic men, walled and bedded
like fresh pens on off-white paper,
groove-coloring bodies into ruined
houses, shredded by a twister who
drew breath from showing him the sky.
I had forgotten the boy who had my face,
his rosy cheeks fading into the red harvest
moonlight. On the bed, the ceiling smiles back.
He could have sworn it was God himself,
grinning with barked teeth.

Huan He is the author of the chapbook Sandman (Diode Editions). His poems appear in Poetry, Sewanee Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, A Public Space, and elsewhere. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.